The best-selling Xbox 360 game of all time gets even bigger with more epic new multiplayer content, first on Xbox LIVE! The Modern Warfare 2 Resurgence Pack delivers five incredible new multiplayer maps. Take the action to exciting new locations, then battle across legendary landscapes from Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

To celebrate the upcoming release of the Modern Warfare 2 Stimulus Package, Microsoft is unlocking MW2 Multiplayer for Silver Xbox LIVE members with a Multiplayer Unlock weekend, running from March 12 to March 14 on Xbox LIVE. If you haven’t yet experienced Modern Warfare 2’s epic multiplayer, now is your chance!

The multiple Game of the Year award-winner Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 just got bigger, with more epic multiplayer content, first on Xbox LIVE! The Modern Warfare 2 Stimulus Package will deliver additional action-packed multiplayer maps, including brand-new battlegrounds and legendary fan-favorites from Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

I recently broke news on a PC community member’s podcast that Modern Warfare 2 would be introducing a completely new backend infastructure called IWNET that would allow matchmaking for multiplayer games on PC. The news, by default, means no more browsing through a Server List for a server with the settings / ping you want among other things, and sent shockwaves through the hardcore PC community, leading to many more questions than answers as to ‘HOW’ this would work, and if it would really be better for the PC community as a whole.

Questions, assumptions, and speculation I intend to dispel.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is actually the biggest investment Infinity Ward has ever made into the PC version of our games. It’s also the most feature-rich PC version we’ve ever made. IWNET takes the benefits of dedicated servers and allows them to be utilized and accessed by every player, out of the box, while removing the barrier to entry for players unaware of how to maintain a server on their own.

How does it do this?

Matchmaking & Smoother Gameplay: When you want to player a multiplayer game on PC, in the past. You’d have to scroll through a Server Browser which listed every available server which was hosted by individual server admins. Each had their own private rules, mods, or ways of playing the game. Most players would also use the server browser to find just the best quality game (based on PING). With IWNET matchmaking, it takes all that into account for you. All you have to do is select the playlist (pre-set gametypes with custom rules) that fits the style of play you are in the mood for. When you do, it will automatically find you a game with the best performance, ping, and preferences based on your location and individual connection as well as matching you with players of your same SKILL. So you’re always guaranteed the best game performance for where you are and what connection you’re playing on as well as an equal game with other players of your same skill level, not rank, but skill level. It doesn’t mean you’ll just be thrown into a random game! It will put you in the game that will give you the smoothest gameplay possible without you having to manually find a server with the best ping.

Playlists and Private Matches: As I described above, Playlists are pre-set game modes and gametypes for public games. If you just want to jump into a public game of Search and Destroy or Hardcore Search and Destroy and you don’t care about fully customizing it, then you can utilize playlists to do that quickly for you. However, say you’re in a clan and you want to play a Clan match with another team, or you want to practice for an upcoming tournament that has specific rules in a private game. Then you can start a Private Match (which is essentially like running your own private server) where you have complete control over the rules, who can join, boot players you don’t want, and essentially control the entire game or tweak it to your liking. Once the rules are set, you can invite the other team in or just start it up with your clan to practice with the custom rules before the match. This now allows you to play custom games out of the box without the need to install mods, find a modded server with the rules you like, or worry about not being in control of the match.

Party System and Friendslist: Modern Warfare 2 on PC also makes it much easier if you want to party up with your friends, or again, with your clan for a match. You can utilize the friendslist to see when your friends are online, and invite them to your Party. A Party allows you to move from game to game as a group. It’s great for clan matches, because you can party of with your clan and move from public game to public game together. Or if you’re doing a scrim, party up and invite the other clan (who is in a party) and they’ll all join at once. Set up a private match together and play. It makes setting up scrims or games with friends easier and hassle free.

Cheat / Hack Free Games: The biggest benefit of using IWnet by far is the fact that you don’t have to worry about joining a server full of aim-bots, wallhacks, or cheaters. Or relying on the server admin of the server to constantly be monitoring, banning, and policing it. Modern Warfare 2 on PC allows us to control the quality of the game much more than ever before as well as utilizing the VAC (Valve-Anti-Cheat) system to keep games clean of hackers and cheaters.

All in all, IWNET adds a load of new features that the PC version of our games have never had before and allows us an infrastructure to continue to update and improve on the game post-launch.

How important are graphics to you? Regardless of who wins in the endless ‘Graphics VS Gameplay’ argument, when you buy a new game, especially a direct sequel to a previous game, you have certain expectations of what that game should offer.

Innovation in gameplay, new features, new weapons, new maps, and of course, a leap in visual fidelity.

I’ve shown you some of the new innovations in gameplay (like the Customizable Killstreak Rewards video) and of course new weapons, perks, and levels within those videos; with more to come as we get closer to launch. Right now though, I wanted to take a look at the visual enhancements we’ve made to Modern Warfare 2.

A major component in the new engine tech that has the greatest impact on these enhancements is our new hi-res Texture Streaming functionality. Texture streaming allows our designers the freedom to make much larger environments, like the scene below, while also increasing the amount of detail on the characters, and environments in the vicinity of the player.

Take this screenshot that we released at GamesCom this week for example. Enlarge the screenshots to really see what I’m talking about here.

You can see how this new feature allows to us to further push the amount of detail we can add to our characters, their gear, and especially the environment thanks to the memory allotment improvements it provides. Allowing more space for weather effects, dynamic destructible objects, and other details that are just as crucial to the total immersion of the game.

I wanted to clarify the supposed “news” coming out of GameCom this morning regarding no MW2 Beta.

First, nothing has technically changed by this news. As I’ve told you many times in the past, expect no Public Beta unless we announce otherwise. That is still the case. We would never say something as definitive as “No Beta Ever!” as that’s simply not how we work. We’ll do an internal beta, if we feel a public one is needed, we’ll explore that route as well.

It is true that we have not announced a Public Beta for MW2, and that remains true unless I announce otherwise.

However, while no Public Beta is currently announced we do plan on running an extensive Closed Beta among Infinity Ward, Activision, and possibly 1st party partners worldwide. The internal beta will allow us all the benefits of a public beta test without the impact it takes on the time required to prep, distribute, & manage a public beta during this crucial time in development.

Remember, Multiplayer has been in development since Day 1 of working on Modern Warfare 2, and this is the essential run up to launch when we’re playing everyday, hammering away on it to make sure it’s as polished as can be by launch. As always, our internal QA team has daily multiplayer tests in addition to company-wide nightly MP tests we hold from the moment MP is in a running state throughout development.

Once the internal beta is completed, if for any reason we feel we didn’t receive the feedback, address the issues, or have the result we expect. We would consider pushing forward with a public one, however at this point only an internal Closed Beta is planned.

That said, any fears that no Public Beta will result in any quality loss in the final multiplayer game is completely unfounded; Multiplayer has always been and will always remain a major focus for the team at Infinity Ward and we would never ship a product we didn’t feel lived up to the high standards we hold ourselves to.

While we love public betas for all the obvious reasons, an internal Closed Beta allows us the extra freedom and flexibility to give the entire multiplayer a chance to be widely beta tested without requiring excess development time simply to prep the game for public release instead of an internal beta test which is ran on dev kits / test kits. That fact alone, allows us to have a smoother and faster process of iteration when addressing issues and pushing fixes out to beta participants.

This decision allows us to deliver a more polished experience, which in the end, is what we all want.

Stay informed on Multiplayer

We’ll be filming plenty of Multiplayer videos for you to get a glimpse of new perks, features, killstreak rewards, and other additions you can look forward to in Modern Warfare 2’s Multiplayer. Keep an eye on our Twitter feed (@fourzerotwo) for when we post new videos and subscribe to the Official Infinity Ward YouTube channel.

In addition to the official multiplayer videos and features we release, we’ll be doing more and more multiplayer press from now until launch so you can get your fill of intel before jumping online day 1.